


A Chaotic Sort of Logic

by Only_1_Truth



Series: Chaos and Logic Chronicles [2]
Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: A peak into Q-branch, Gods!AU, Heavily damaged 007, M/M, No smut in this one unfortunately, Q might be nesting, Serious Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 20:18:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4193517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Only_1_Truth/pseuds/Only_1_Truth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been some time since Q tried to outmaneuver 007 and ended up sleeping with him instead.  In that time, Q has made himself a technological haven in Q-branch - the perfect place for a New God like himself.  </p><p>But when a heavily injured 007 walks in, bleeding power and fading fast, will Q be able to reconcile the differences between their two breeds?  Old Gods like Bond feed on devotion, and thrive on chaos and emotion - things all absent here in Q-branch.  Q will just have to find another way to help his 00-agent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Chaotic Sort of Logic

**Author's Note:**

> So, thanks to all of the comments and ideas in them, I couldn't resist writing more in this AU :) It's part of a series instead of a work with chapters, because these can more or less stand on their own - although if anyone here is a first-time reader, you might want to find the first episode of this series firs!
> 
> A million bajillion thanks to Chestnut_NOLA, who made the new banner for this!! I picked out pictures, and she then took them and did magic, clearly, to make this banner. Alec isn't in this installment, but I just had to ask her to add him...

 Q had been ‘tuning’ Q-branch ever since he’d settled in there, altering computer connections and coding with a sort of tireless efficiency that probably gave him away as inhuman even if nothing else did.  R called it his ‘New God version of feng shui,’ Eve called it ‘nesting,’ at which Q huffed and said it was far more complicated than any of that and went back to moving things around. The minions could think whatever they wanted – they could only see a bare fraction of what Q was manipulating.

The heart of Q-branch was like a nexus of power by the time Q was done, a mass of technological energy that thrummed at a pitch just below human hearing.  If Q tipped his head and closed his eyes, however, he could hear it perfectly. A brief twist of his hand shifted a wavelength, smoothing out one of millions of signals like a comb untangling a knot.  The one sub-audible note that had been out of place slipped back into the perfect, humming whole, and Q smiled to himself proudly.  All around him, various tech analysts worked with the massive array of tech Q had accrued and set up, secretly a bit awed by how seamlessly each piece of technology worked.

There were definite perks to having a New God, however young, as the Quartermaster of MI6.

The two Old Gods under MI6’s roof were back to running missions, their ability to get the job done continuing to astound their handlers.  Q secretly worried about them, knowing that the modern world didn’t do Old Gods any favors – 006 and 7 were nearly indestructible, but ‘ _nearly’_ was the key word.  It was hard to kill them, but now that Q understood at least Bond a bit more, he knew that it was possible. 

Q shivered just thinking about a world that didn’t instinctively supply him with energy, and unconsciously lifted a hand, carding it through the air as he approached his office. The smooth, cold flow of data in the air caught around his fingers like strands of cotton candy, soaking into his skin and filling him with a steady, focused calm.  He sat down to his own personal laptop, favoring the physical interface as he looked through upcoming mission specs.

His mind drifted to his two most troubling 00-agents, however (while simultaneously ignoring the way he called them ‘his’).

007 came into Q-branch only to pick up his kit before missions, but often seemed to prefer remote meeting locations, like the art museum where he’d asked Q to meet him last – 007 had seemed more natural, sitting amidst old paintings and running those intense blue eyes over the forgotten representation of a battleship.  Bond likewise did a pretty good job of avoiding Q’s workspace by destroying most of the tech he was sent out with, thus removing the need to drop anything off.  When he did come in, he usually stayed on the outskirts of Q-branch, polite and friendly in his vaguely dangerous way, and left promptly.  006 avoided Q-branch altogether.  Q hadn’t asked, but it was pretty elementary to guess that the domain of a New God was not exactly a comfortable location for their Old counterparts to be. 

The idle musing was halted as a warning appeared quite politely on Q’s computer screen, the more blatant signals fizzling right through Q’s skin like carpet-sparks.  With nothing more than a twist of his mind, Q brought up the surveillance cameras at the east entrance to Q-branch, where the facial recognition program had picked up James Bond. 

007 had been in a rather shady operation deep in South America, putting him in many locations that even Q had a hard time accessing – as much as Q hated to admit it, jungles were rarely well equipped with technology.  Q had had a bugger of a time keeping track of 007 at all, and mostly the mission had gone on without the Quartermaster’s supervision.  This in itself was not uncommon, and with so many other missions to equip, provide back-up for, and oversee from afar, Q-branch as a whole never lacked for additional work to keep them occupied.  Q had been aware that 007 was back in the country, but he should have only just arrived – Q could think of no reason for him to come directly to Q-branch.

And something about the sight of Bond on the video…  Eyes narrowing behind his glasses, Q scanned for signs of blood or wear, but as always, 007 looked impeccable: physically imposing, suave, and as inviting as he was lethal. But there was something off about him, and the slim young man was immediately pushing back from his desk and exiting his office. 

Even without the surveillance cameras, 007 (and 006 as well) was always easy to locate within Q-branch. Whereas the data and electrical energy filled the underground space with coolness and uniformity like a snowstorm, Old Gods stood out like flames, burning and fickle and anathema to just about everything New. 

Right now, however, Q was immensely disturbed that he could only sense 007 as a flickering candle.

Speeding up and not pausing to explain his hurry to the techies he whisked by – no one else seemed alarmed – Q wove his way to where the 00-agent was standing as easily as ever, leaning nonchalantly against one cubicle.  He was even chatting idly with a blushing young woman who ran the phone lines for lower-class agents overseas.  But Q saw immediately that something was wrong.

Q had noted before that Bond wore his human-ness like a skin, a shell that he inhabited with impeccable skill so that no one mundane ever saw through it.  To the more savvy eyes of a New God, however – one who arguably knew 007 better than most – the cracks were visible, and right now they looked like a lattice-work of open wounds. 

“What happened?” Q demanded, voice uncharacteristically loud and sharp.  Everyone jumped and flinched, tensing, while 007 merely turned pale-blue eyes to watch Q storm up to him.  It was evident now that his stillness was not due to 00-agent calmness, but utter exhaustion – even if his face didn’t show it. 

007’s energy was bleeding out of his invisible wounds like plumes of heat staining Q-branch’s cold, analytical world. And that heat was fading.

Daring to put on an impish, bitter sort of smile, 007 replied with brevity, “You’d be surprised by the un _godly_ things you run into in South America.”

Q’s eyes immediately widened as he read between the lines – and he found himself acting on instinct: he turned around and beckoned for 007 to follow him to his office.  After four steps he hesitated, met with the ugly realization that his office was at the heart of Q-branch, a place that 007 and 006 took pains never to go, but a glance back showed Bond following him sedately. Everything about his outward appearance spoke of idleness and lazy charm, as if 007 were merely down here on a whim and perhaps enjoying a bit of socialization – but the façade, no matter how undeniably good it was, didn’t stop Q from noticing the fact that 007 was seriously hurt. 

“Why are you not in Medical?” he hissed, without changing his steps to go that way himself. 

It turned out that Q’s reticence to go to Medical reflected Bond’s.  The agent replied with lowered volume just as Q had, his undertone calm but tight now, “I’ve been here for three different changes in leadership of MI6, but despite that, Medical still knows fuck-all about Gods.”

Q nodded, a bit sadly, in acknowledgement. He’d been treated for a bad burn at Medical sometime back, but while the doctors and nurses there were very happy to patch up scorched skin, they’d admitted sincerely to him that any… deeper… damage would be up to him to deal with.  There had been no ‘deeper damage,’ but the world simply had no way of detecting that, so Q had gone back to his daily work with a little bandage and a newfound understanding of medicine and the supernatural. 

007 was still talking, startling Q back into focusing, “So I came to you.”

Utterly baffled, Q nearly walked into a work-station as he stared over his shoulder.  “ _Why_?! Bond, you look nearly burnt-out!”

“I am,” admitted the agent without reluctance, which was disturbing in its own right: what kind of man (mundane or not) could talk so easily about death hovering so close?  This was _exactly_ what Q had been thinking about earlier – about the fact that Gods might be ageless, but they were not un-killable.   “And the days are long past when I could just recoup losses like this,” he finally winced, and suddenly he developed a limp.  Still heading mindlessly towards his office, Q noticed the appearance of the physical weakness like a jolt to his system. Q looked with actual fear up to 007’s eyes, which were meeting his stalwartly and guilelessly, but the color in them was dull – the color of bluish steel instead of lightning caught in twin sapphires.

“You remembered that I can pull energy out of thin air.  I never run out,” Q realized with a leap of logic. 

A cut started to appear on 007’s jaw, as if an invisible knife were drawing across his skin.  Very human-looking blood began to seep out even as Bond nodded.

“That’s because I’m a _New_ God, 007!  You aren’t.”  It was getting harder and harder to keep his voice down, to hide the very real panic flooding his system at the thought that…

He couldn’t think it. 007 was as constant as the rising and falling of the sun – if it stopped, the earth would, too.

“I’m aware, Q,” growled Bond. They were now at the middle of Q-branch, where every electrical pulse, every wifi signal, every spark of data, had been organized and tuned into perfect synchronicity.  007 closed his eyes and made a face, giving his head one hard shake before seeming to consciously calm down; Q wondered if he could hear the perfectly pitched, impossibly low note singing through the air. The blonde-haired man was grimacing like he’d tasted something sour.  “But you have access to energy like I’ll never have – and I need a battery. At this point, you’re the only battery that I won’t drain dry.”

They’d reached Q’s office, and while 007 seemed to be getting slowly accustomed to the surge and flow of modernity rushing around him, Q realized with a visceral jolt that Q-branch was the last place a fading Old God should be.  There was _nothing_ for Bond here. The same power that was even now infusing Q’s every inch was inedible to 007 – or at least something that he couldn’t tap into.  And what was worse, it ate away at all the things that Q had come to associate with Old Gods: chaos, emotions, heat, the pure fire of physicality. Even now, Q’s emotions were being drawn away almost as quickly as they were bubbling up, and he came to the dreadful realization that the kind of worship he’d fed Bond with before would be impossible here. 

“You stupid, insane bastard,” was all he was able to say. 

Bond merely raised one eyebrow and reached past Q for the door-handle to his office, opening it despite the many minions not-so-discreetly peering at the interaction now. “Let me explain to you my thinking, and _then_ you can call me that. If this works, I’ll let you berate me all you want.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Q asked, tone managing to sound cold, but it shook even as he slipped into his office with 007.

As he closed and locked the door, 007 managed to flash a crooked, roguish smile.  “Don’t worry, Quartermaster, it’ll work.  I’m told that I’m very hard to get rid of.”  Even as he said this, another injury opened up: like watching healing in reverse, Q stared as 007’s knuckles split open and grew red and raw. “Damn,” the man said, with no particular inflection, and sat down heavily on the futon pushed against the side of the room – for the times when Q finally couldn’t run on data and circuitry alone, and needed sleep. 

Torn between calling for outside help and realizing that there honestly wasn’t anyone who could, Q ended up burying his fingers in his hair and pulling until it stung.  “ _Shit_ ,” he snarled at nothing – at Bond – at everything, repeating a few times for good measure before the coldness of logic managed to get a toehold on his consciousness again. “What do you need me to do?”

Bond had lain down, looking more exhausted by the second as his outside started to reflect his deplorable state inside. “And that’s why you New Gods can be so useful sometimes.  Think logically, Q.” The way 007 was blinking up at the ceiling torpidly showed that he was swiftly finding it hard to think _at all_. Clearly, he’d barely been holding it together until now, and the severity of the situation threatened to shatter Q’s calm and send him into a panic.  Fortunately, 007 swallowed, focused, and continued, “You remember how I shared power with you?”

That whole evening was rather vivid in Q’s memory.  Much like Bond stood out like fire against snow, the memory was vibrant and wild against Q’s geometric history.  “Yes.”

Blue eyes flicked to him, for the first time in Q’s memory looking just the slightest bit uncertain. “Do you think that you can do the same to me?”

Immediately, the possibilities started flashing through Q’s brain, the speed far beyond what any computer would ever accomplish.  Hand stroking his lower lip, Q sat down on the edge of the futon by 007’s hip, trying to put thoughts together before he lost a 00-agent.  He’d already lost men; it was sometimes unavoidable, but he never wanted to feel that again.  “You think that because I was able to feed off… worship… like an Old God, you might be able to take in what I survive on?”

“Yes, but I can’t bloody tap into the stuff!” 007 snarled in frustration, the baring of his teeth suddenly making him look more like what he was, especially with blood smearing his jaw and throat: a god of war.  Unfortunately, while there was still a lot of war in the world today, it was more often fought with tanks and drones and hackers like Q, not fists and feet and blood.

“And you think I can help with that?”

“If anyone can, it’s you, Q,” 007 replied with a surprising amount of trust, even as his power flickered like a flame in a gale, and he began to look progressively more like he’d gotten thrashed… which Q supposed he had. 

“Bond, I don’t know how to-!” Q protested.

The agent cut him off with laudable calmness and maybe even a bit of familiar sarcasm, eyes closing briefly. “Don’t worry, Q, no one does. Luckily for you, I’m a war-god – which is about as close as someone can be to a chaos-god like Alec without actually being one.  So what you do doesn’t exactly have to be _logical_.”

“That is possibly the least helpful thing I have ever heard.”

“I’m an Old God, Q. _Intent_ counts more than anything else – just like that mark I put on you. There’s no rulebook. You just need to know what you _want_.” 007 calmed him once again with only the barest edges of exasperation roughening his tone. Then he tensed and winced, and blood started darkening his trousers beneath one knee. 

Somehow, the reminder of their last amorous night together (the only occasion that had happened, but on Q’s mind more often than he wanted to admit) focused Q.  He thought about the chaotic mark, traced into his skin and connecting the two of them exactly how 007 had wanted.  There was no logic or order to the sigil, and Q wondered if Bond ever made the same one twice.

Q began to get an idea.

“Okay… Okay.”  He took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose, and then leaned forward over 007 with determination.  Buttons were slowly undone beneath his fingers. “I’ve never tried to mark something before.” He gave his head a little shake, lips pursing as he tried to stay calm, focusing on the cold, analytical data thickening the air around him.  “I’m not sure if New Gods can even do that sort of thing.”

“Really?”  007 seemed genuinely surprised – or maybe a bit hazy. He’d lifted hands to help Q, but in the end, they’d ended up falling to his sides again, ripped knuckles and all. It was odd to have such a powerful man essentially helpless beneath Q’s touch. 

The Quartermaster shook his head as tanned skin was revealed inch by swift inch.  “For me at least, the closest thing to an important symbol that affects my daily life would be binary – ones and zeroes.  But on their own, a one or a zero hardly has any significant attachment to it, so I can’t imagine that they lend themselves to symbolism.”

Bond hummed as if to show that he was following, but the way his eyes were closing for longer and longer periods, and the way his body was relaxing more and more, indicated that he would swiftly be unresponsive.  Fear clutched at Q’s throat, but he finally had access to the broad expanse of 007’s chest, and tried to remember all he could about 007 sewing power into his skin with just a few drags of his finger.

007 had done a lot of things through repetition: tracing the mark again and again, like someone blowing air on an ember until it leapt into flame, or sucking seven tingling bruises into Q’s skin. Q’s limited knowledge of old religions and superstitions was able to vaguely connect this with numerology, or merely the significance of odd things happening again and again until the mind believed it was magic.  He pushed that aside – he didn’t work that way.  Not quite.

He thought about that again, about how it used repetition in a far more refined way.  For Q, the right sequence of ones and zeroes could create anything he wanted. 

“Anything I want…” he murmured to himself, and got to work. 

At first it seemed like nothing so much as Q nervously drumming his fingertips against 007’s sternum, pale fingers against tanned skin that was starting to show bruises like ugly flowers blooming. Q frowned and closed his eyes with concentration, however, trying to _understand_ the essence that he depended on rather than merely soak it in. It was harder than expected, especially when he realized he’d have to translate that into binary, the only sort of sigil he could think of right now. 

But as Q began to focus, began to break down his world into strings upon strings of binary, he began to feel the seemingly insignificant numbers tug at the flow of data around him. Each mark was a hook, and each snagged just a minnow of data from the great sea of it, something that Q realized he probably did on a regular basis without thinking – only this time, he had to drag those hooks to someone _else_. As soon as Q tried to attach the marks to 007, tapping a Morse-code of promises into his skin, the power bucked and rebelled, however.  Q gritted his teeth, starting to wonder just how powerful 007 was even when he was weakened, that he’d managed to fuse two powers together on that night, powers that were so intrinsically different. He felt like he was trying to pull a cat to water, and for a moment he stopped, panting and leaning over 007’s still form with his fingers digging into his pectoral muscles.

On a whim, terrified that 007 was fading faster than Q could learn this new trick, Q pressed a butterfly kiss to the hollow of the agent’s throat.  To be honest, reverence was a rather alien concept to most New Gods, Q included, but he desperately tried his best now, in the hopes of keeping 007 alive just a little longer.  Q actually snarled aloud in frustration when the analytical atmosphere of Q-branch snuffed out the praise – they truly were fire and water.  007 had purposefully walked into a wasteland in search of food and water.

Infuriated with himself, with bloody 007 for believing in him like this, and angry at the miniature world of numbers and wires he’d been so proud of only an hour ago, Q reared back with a frustrated cry. He struck a hand out as if clearing a table, and felt a nasty, fierce, bitter pleasure as the perfectly tuned notes all around him flew into disarray. 

But suddenly 007 stirred, and Q turned to see nearly invisible light flicker against his skin: blue as an old computer screen, delicate as the finest wires, and reminiscent of a line of code even now fading into obscurity against 007’s skin.

That was when the final piece of the puzzle fell into place: there were two sides to this problem. It was bimodal; fractal; organic and more complicated than even the vast equations Q had been thinking. Q wasn’t working with just himself, after all, but an Old God on the other end.  He began instantly to think in branching algorithms, adaptive programming, recalling some of his best viruses that had run on – against all logic – _chaos_.  He’d been so proud of how their unpredictable natures had allowed them to snowball from tiny glitches to unstoppable computerized monsters. Ultimately, only Q’s brain was quick enough to track each change to such viruses’ programming, watching as they gathered mutations exponentially like a real virus’s DNA as it multiplied. That was what Q needed now: something that was organic and wild enough to latch onto an Old God like Bond, but still ultimately within the world of data and numbers, so that Q could bridge the language gap. 

Had there been any other New Gods in Q-branch, they would have been horrified and awed by the boiling storm being created out of the neat flow of data in the room.  From that one, unwavering note, Q was making a symphony – and anyone who knew music knew that music was at once the most regimented and most chaotic, the most analytical and most visceral, entity that mankind knew.

~^~

007 shifted, muscles moving restlessly where Q had been afraid they’d never move again.  When the man’s eyes opened warily, their irises glowed with such a shocking shade of blue that it was like the irises had been etched with lightning.  “Q?” asked the agent slowly, his tone rife with wariness. 

By now, Q had designed an entire matrix of sigils on Bond’s chest.  The marks were incredibly tiny, and they flickered and flared like little LED lights, or wires hidden just beneath the skin – testaments to the New power that Q had finally managed to link to the confusing entity that 007 was. By the way 007 was holding very still and tensing, it was quite an alien sensation.

But at least he wasn’t dying anymore.

“How do you feel, Bond?” Q asked, touching the agent’s shoulder as if to orient him.  007’s eyes hadn’t focused, and were half-lidded in an odd way, although he didn’t seem to be in any pain from what little Q could tell. The link between himself and 007 was far less intimate than the reverse had been, but that was no doubt the nature of New magic. 

Frowning rather heavily, struggling and clearly failing to become more alert, 007 slowly managed to turn his eyes to Q. The sapphire shine of his eyes made Q shiver and he couldn’t look away.  “I feel a lot like I swallowed liquid nitrogen,” he said candidly.

Q quirked an eyebrow. “You’re going to have to clarify, 007.”

Instead, 007 merely narrowed his eyes at him, as if baffled, or offended that he couldn’t figure Q out. “Is it always like this for you? Bloody hell, how do you hold onto a single emotion?”

Finally relaxing as he realized that he wasn’t hurting Bond, and hadn’t damaged him irreparably in his attempt to save him (hopefully), Q actually managed a small chuckle and sagged where he still sat by the other man’s side.  “Yes, well, that’s the nature of modern technology.”  Without thinking, Q moved his hand, and it slid from its place on 007’s muscular shoulder over the binary-marked skin, and 007 immediately hissed, teeth baring.  “Sorry!” Q said immediately, withdrawing his hand.  “I know little more about this than you do.  You seem to have healed, though.”

Settling down now that the contact had been broken – apparently a connection from Q’s side wasn’t designed to create the visceral pleasure that 007’s was, just as Q’s powers were more mental while Bond’s were physical – 007 nodded and sighed.  Then smiled.  “Good job, Q.”

“Thanks.  Do me a favor next time, though, and give me a bit of warning before dropping life-or-death situations in my lap.  As educational as this was, I’m sure that I could do better given time to actually sit an analyze the situation,” Q informed him primly. Already he was looking at the mark he had made, preening at the satisfactory job he’d done in such short notice while also thinking of the myriad of ways to tweak and improve it. He didn’t know if he could get his own magic to do the things 007’s had done (their powers had different intrinsic natures, after all), but already he could see possibilities opening up for him.

“Working with an Old God is surprisingly stimulating,” the Quartermaster murmured to himself before realizing that he’d said it aloud. 

Q’s analytical source of power was still trickling into 007 via the array of tiny marks, but 007’s own nature was quickly transmuting that chill, emotionless cold into the fire he was more known for – so despite his earlier claims of emotional frostbite, he cast Q a leering grin that flashed with heat.  “Stimulating?” he repeated.

Flushing at being caught out, Q tried to glare.  “ _Mentally_ stimulating,” he snapped back.

“Are you sure?  Because I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t your mind I was stimulating the night I met you,” 007 pressed incorrigibly, lifting a hand to brush the back of it against Q’s thigh. 

At this rate, Q’s blush would never leave, even with emotionless data swirling all around him like a second-skin. “I can’t believe anyone lets you out in public,” he tried to sound scathing and sounded mildly resigned instead.

“It’s not what I do in public that you’re thinking about, is it?”  The hand had taken to stroking Q’s upper leg, and Q caught 007’s wrist just as he started to feel the beginning, seductive tingle of a repetitive pattern.

007 merely smirked up at him unrepentantly. “Can’t blame a man for trying.”

“Need I remind you, 007,” Q informed him dryly, even as he let the agent turn his hand and capture Q’s slimmer digits in his warm grip, “that I’m the one that controls that mark, and unlike yours, I’m pretty sure that it will stay active for several more hours unless I code in the off-switch.”

“Ah, and by that time, I rather think that I’ll be strong enough to put a mark on you that will have you keyed up for _days_ ,” 007 rumbled as he sat up with a sudden, fluid curl of his torso. Q gasped as he found himself suddenly inches from Bond, staring between upward-tilted, chapped lips and those eerily glowing blue eyes.  Bond’s comment sent a surge of involuntary interest south of Q’s belt.  The way he suddenly was at a loss for both breath and words probably told 007 exactly how interested Q was in that sudden idea.

But the agent softened. His smile became less predatory, more warm – his eyes less otherworldly, more human.  Q once again found himself looking at eyes that were a normal sky-blue, and he found himself being gifted with a rather chaste kiss to his right temple, nudging the arm of his glasses a little. Somehow, that made Q tingle all over in a way the promise of intense sex hadn’t.  007 was also still holding Q’s hand, and this time, Q thought that the idle tracings of the man’s fingers on his wrist had some other intention to them. Q suddenly found himself thinking about how the strongest bonds of loyalty and trust were forged amidst the unceasing dangers of war. 

“Thank you, Q,” 007 said, more softly. The next kiss was human and gentle on Q’s mouth, and Q melted into it.  The New mark sizzled on 007’s chest like ice sublimating under the intense, beating heart of the sun, and Q finally let himself accept that it would be all right. He’d keep his 00-agent awhile longer.

**Author's Note:**

> I still have plans to write at least one more segment - with Alec Trevelyan, our friendly-neighborhood chaos-god in it ;3 As with the first part of the series, I'm totally open to answering questions about this AU! It's be incredibly fun to write in <3


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